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Listen up, fellow feather-fans! One of our Cajun Chronicles Podcast Board of Advisors members recently dropped some serious knowledge on us. Gigi is clearly a bird aficionado. She chirped in during a 2025 planning meeting about the shocking lack of awareness, outside of Louisiana, about the Mississippi Flyway.
Imagine, folks, millions of our feathered friends soaring overhead, utilizing our beautiful state as their luxurious, all-inclusive bird resort! Wetlands, forests, coastlines – We've got the whole Un bon temps pour tous (a good time for everyone) It's like Louisiana is the ultimate avian Cajun swamp spa, complete with gourmet insect buffets and scenic flight paths.
Now, since podcasting is all about forging real connections with our listeners. Let’s be honest, with the natural world our connections with Mother Nature’s other children are also special. Some of our staff, like our Co-Host, Laurent Thibodaux, were seriously considering dedicating an episode to the fascinating language of birds. Who knows, maybe we'll even learn how to order a room at that five-star avian Cajun spa!"
Board Of Advisors - Gigi Shares Her Childhood
Connection To Speaking Bird
“I guess it’s time to admit it. I do speak bird. More specifically I speak birdsong. At the ripe old age of ten, my accordion teacher challenged me to memorize 250 songs in three months. Mr. Valentine first pointed out that is the typical number of bird songs the Nightingale has tucked into its birdbrain. If a Nightingale could do it, he reckoned, so could I.
If that sounds like a lot of songs to learn, it actually wasn’t. Before my next birthday I would memorize 1000 songs.
Now, Mr. Valentine was a mountain of a man. Whenever he laughed, his rotund belly jiggled like a bowl of Ruby Red Rapture Raspberry jello. His accordion was his trusty Pigini Maestro accordion was his equally large Friesian jet-black steed. His chubby fingers danced across keys like fireflies on Phlox ivory-colored notched flat delicate petals under the moonlight. Pure magic.
He wasn’t just an accordion teacher. He was a musical encyclopedia, a walking talking history book of music. He taught me about composition and musical analysis, the strange-sounding scales, and most importantly about famous composers who wrote music from the perspective of songbird birdbrains.
He knew that Mozart borrowed notes from European Starlings and that Ludwig van Beethoven drew inspiration from White-Breasted Robins in his likewise short melodious introductory notes in compositions. However, it was my teacher’s unveiling of the fact that Olivier Messiaen was like me, that in the end created a special bond between us.
At the time, as someone who hears musical chords and notes in technicolor (diagnosed at 38 as having chromesthesia, a form of synesthesia) — all I knew was that both Mr. Valentine and this composer were passionate bird watchers (actual ornithologists) and loved music as I did.
If asked what I wanted to be when I grew up? My girl answered: Write songs, be a poet, or be a fashion designer. Mr. Valentine told me then that he thought I could compose music like Messiaen. He often asked me to close my eyes when playing certain chords and tell him what I was seeing afterward.
I seldom had words for what I saw and would make something up. It would be years later, when art classes increased my color names vocabulary that even to myself, I could finally articulate colors in the intensity that sometimes comes in bursts. Connecting the dots to the notes was automatic from the beginning. I just didn’t know how to explain it.
Accepting and masking that I was different at that time in my life, made me nervous. No kid wants to be different and I already knew I was inside different even if outside I looked ordinary. I just wanted to be normal. I wasn’t about to admit openly that there was a light show inside my brain. Yet, I’m sure Mr. Valentine was aware that I am triggered by not only music, but also highly sensitive to sounds and light.
The moment he put on a recording of a Nightingale songbird, and sat me down to write on staff paper what notes I heard was a light bulb moment in my young life. The feathered virtuoso had quite a standard playlist, with a repertoire that would put ol’ blue eyes to shame.
In the days that followed that summer, I would get up in that magical coolness of the early morning and sit outside and listen to the dawn chorus at sunrise. There I heard bright red-headed Western Tangers greeting daylight with cheerful whistles “I’m so happy. Hey, I’m here.”
“The song of a bird is a poem we cannot understand but one that we can feel .”— Unknown
I listened to a sparrow-like California Towhee’s short sharp notes. Occasionally, there would be a blue-grey White-breasted Nuthatch whit-whit-whit chiming in as he climbed head first down a tree. I caught the sounds of a red-headed and red-chested House Finch’s sweet warble that ended in the chirp chirp crescendo at the end of his bird song.
I nearly wept at the mournful cooing tune of the pair of black V-shaped chested Mourning Doves beneath one of Grama Daisy’s rose bushes. And just as the chorus was about to take their bows, in flew a territorial white-eye ringed American Red Robin, for the bird finale, whistling, “Cheer up, cheer up, cheer up cheerily.”
I filled two music staff notebooks with songs from the stage outdoors that still play in colorful poetic lyrics and notes within me today. I learned a lot from Mr. Valentine and those bird songs, but not as much as I would later learn from the chatterbox baby birds later in life.
“In the babbling of a baby bird, we hear the echo of our own beginnings, the first tentative steps toward language.” — Unknown
Chatterbox Babbling Baby Birds And Chatter Box Babbling Babies
Fast forward to when I was a young mother, I was still listening to the birds. I no longer was playing the accordion or any other musical instrument. I had turned my back on that world in rebellion. Swore I’d never play again.
Late bloomers in that realm, when I joined the Air Force, all aimed at asserting my adulthood to my overbearing stage parent father. He was an Irish tenor who often booked us together, in senior citizen ballroom dances and bowling alley venues. I was done with three hours of practice, band, orchestra, and performing.
Despite that, I still was always immersed in the world of words, crafting songs, lyrics, poems, and stories. However, my creative pursuits were soon to be interrupted by the delightful chatter of baby talk, cooing, and babbling. I was now the mama bird to my own two children. I continued to find solace in Mother Nature and her songbirds. It was only in tending to my own nest, did I truly realize the remarkable similarities in baby babbling and bird babbling.
I soon figured out that the parallels between human babies' babbling and that of baby birds babbling were huge. Ornithologists were already aware of the language abilities of birds, but this was a huge shock to me. Mr. Valentine’s accordionist lessons now came full circle as I taught my own chatterbox babies via song after song.
“When song birds fall silent our world is in peril. Their melodies are a diagnosis of Mother Nature’s health. Their absence is a haunting warning of environmental discord. Something is very wrong when you hear no birds.” — Jerilee Wei © 2024
How We Linguistically Start Out As Very Birdbrained Twins
From Baby Talk To Big Words: Just like my little human babies start babbling and slowly develop more complex sounds into words beyond “dada” and “mama,” young baby birdies follow the same natural language vocalization progression. I like to think it's both human and bird baby chatterboxes basically trying to say “mom” and “feed me now” in the most dramatic ways.
Baby Babbler Copycats: Baby birds and baby humans are little language sponges. They love to absorb and imitate the sounds they hear from the adults around them. It’s as if they are clamoring to say, “I wanna be a karaoke star too!” Surround the little copycats with lots of words, sounds, and songs.
Babble Now, Speak Later - Critical Earlier Is Easier: Timing is everything when it comes to learning a language. If a baby bird or a baby human doesn’t get enough exposure to hearing sounds and words from the very beginning it will lag behind. All blabbermouths regardless of species, need constant and consistent simulation in processing sound.
Tiny Baby Deep Thinker Brain Development: I’ve always thought it’s fascinating that when babies start babbling and baby birds start chirping showing the DNA-driven link in a mommy and me club. As they gain more vocalizations they are vying for a secret membership brain area for talkers.
They don’t automatically get a membership card to the clubhouse. Both brains are hot-wired into special rooms for different languages and then further directed toward different regional accents. At the same time, they are learning the difference between a call, an alarm, and a song.
A Linguistic Problem That Knows No Species Borders
Just as humans are losing many native languages and now have extinct and endangered languages, so too are many songbird languages growing endangered or going extinct. This shared linguistic tragedy highlights the fragility of language diversity and the urgent global need for conservation efforts.
As human tongues are also withering, so are avian dialects, we are all leaving behind our rich linguistic heritages. The extinction of languages, both human and avian, are tragedies not only waiting to happen but already happening. It is imperative that we spread awareness and take action to preserve our precious cultural and biological diversity.
Mississippi Flyway’s Endangered Babies
Some specific endangered bird species in the Mississippi Flyway and their particular threats:
Whooping Crane: One of the most endangered bird species in North America, is facing threats from habitat loss, collisions, and human disturbance in Louisiana.
Red-headed Woodpecker: Threatened by habitat loss due to deforestation and competition from other woodpeckers.
Piping Plover: This shorebird is threatened by habitat loss, predation, and human disturbance at nesting sites.
Just as the vibrant songs of some bird species are fading into silence, so too are the rich dialects of Cajun and Creole facing an uncertain future. Both losses stem from similar roots: Habitat destruction, human encroachment, and a slow erosion of cultural identity.
Protecting Louisiana's wetlands, the lifeblood of the Mississippi Flyway, isn't just about saving birds. It's about preserving a unique ecosystem that sustains both avian and human communities. By championing the conservation of both bird languages and the vibrant Cajun, Creole and other marginalized cultures, we can ensure a future where the melodies of nature and humanity continue to enrich our lives.
This story is inspired by real events in the life of Gigi. Some details have been spiced up for a good story. While we've respected the truth, a bit of creative license was used. Please note that some character images may be based on real people, but their identities in some cases have been Avatar masked for privacy.
A Word of Wisdom:
As you read, remember history and real life is a complex mix of joy, sorrow, triumph, and tragedy. While we've added a bit of fiction, the core message remains: the human spirit's power to endure, adapt, and overcome.
© Jerilee Wei 2024 All Rights Reserved. (Note: Bulk of this essay was previously published elsewhere by Jerilee Wei).
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